Watertown's Hannah Bergsbaken moves past Roosevelt's Marissa Class at Yankton Trail Park. Sioux Falls public school students might not be able to compete for club-level championships in coming years. But unless the Sioux Falls School District changes its policy and sanctions soccer, they can't compete for championships on the high school level either. / Elisha Page / Argus Leader

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South Dakota has two high school soccer tournaments.

The version sanctioned by the state concluded Friday in Aberdeen. The club team tournament is this week in Sioux Falls.

Don’t feel bad if you don’t know the difference. Teams in both tournaments have uniforms with their school name or mascot on the front.

The difference is that the Aberdeen event was sponsored by the same official state group that puts together football and basketball tournaments, the South Dakota High School Activities Association, and the costs largely are picked up by the schools.

The club teams — from schools that don’t have official programs — are sponsored by the South Dakota Soccer Association and pay their own way. Beginning in 2015, as things stand now, they won’t have a state tournament.

In the middle is the Sioux Falls School District, based in a city that is crazy for youth soccer. But the public school system in the state’s largest city doesn’t sanction soccer, saying it would cost too much money. With the status of the club tournament in doubt, the issue of where Sioux Falls public school kids will play has become part of the ongoing debate over state support of education.

Sioux Falls schools are unneccesarily punishing the world’s most popular sport, soccer supporters argue. The district, however, maintains the money to add boys and girls soccer just isn’t there.

“With the present state funding for education, we’re not able to add a sport or, in this case, two sports,” said Sioux Falls activities director Mark Meile. “If the dollars for educational funding do not change, then if we add something, we’re also going to have to subtract something. Any discussion about adding something would have to include what we’re going to take away. That’s where we’re at right now.”

Dramatic across-the-board cuts in state funding for education instituted in 2011 intensified budget wrangling in Sioux Falls and school districts around the state. In varying degrees, districts continue to recover from those cuts. At neighboring public schools in places such as Garretson, Tea and Harrisburg, the recovery has included the inclusion of sanctioned soccer. But not in Sioux Falls.

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“It’s not that we don’t want to put soccer in with our other sports,” Meile said. “It’s that if we did do it under present conditions, we’d have to get rid of something else. Right now, without being able to sanction teams, the club teams are a good alternative.”

The obvious difference between the two options is money. Club soccer programs must pay their own bills. Varsity club teams that play a fall schedule for Lincoln, Roosevelt and Washington high schools have to pay for their own uniforms, officials, field time and travel. Schools that have fully sanctioned soccer, meanwhile, no longer pass the organizational and financial burdens onto parents.

“For the parents, we’d like to see the sport sanctioned because of the economics,” said Mike Teslow, whose daughter Julie, a sophomore at Lincoln, is the third of three Teslow girls to play high school club soccer in Sioux Falls.

“We have to take them everywhere. The travel costs, renting the fields, hiring the officials, etc., make it pretty expensive. And if we can’t raise the money, we pull it out of our pockets. For the kids, I think sanctioning would create a better sense of togetherness. Kids aren’t worried about economics on the field, but all the other high school teams ride buses and hang out together. They aren’t taking five cars to every event.”

In other words, there is more to it than the money, regardless of the source of the money. Ken Keiser of Sioux Falls is sending his third child, Daulton, through the club system in Sioux Falls.

Daughters Afton and Kylie went on to play college soccer and Daulton, a standout for the Roosevelt boys team, will be the third. He has no complaints about his own family’s experience, but he wonders about a nonsanctioned soccer future.

“I think we’ll always have (soccer) here, but I could see mid-sized towns opting out of the sanctioned route and then dropping club soccer all together,” he said. “I also think with school soccer you have access to a lot more kids. We pass along our club stuff via email and word of mouth. I don’t think every kid who has the potential to play knows about us. I keep hoping schools realize the decent thing to do is to move forward with this.”

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Decisions with end of club soccer

The South Dakota State Soccer Association will end its sponsorship of club soccer activities after the 2014 season, which means there still is time for school districts to convert to sanctioned status.

With 18 boys teams (in two classes) and 15 girls teams vying for state titles, club teams still outnumber the sanctioned programs, though the margin is closing. This fall, there are 11 sanctioned boys teams that involve 13 schools and nine girls teams that involve 10 schools.

In 2010, the state activities association decided to have a sanctioned soccer season for boys and girls in 2012. It became the 11th girls sport and the eighth boys sport to gain that distinction. Participants have been falling in line since.

“We were acting on the request of the member schools,” said John Krogstrand, assistant executive director of the activities association. “The genesis of the decision (to sanction soccer) began with core members asking us to sponsor it. We leave it up to the schools at that point, but we’re here to offer governance.”

Schools from the immediate vicinity that took the sanctioned route include Sioux Falls Christian, O’Gorman, Tea, Harrisburg and Garretson. A likely addition after next season is Brandon Valley, where budget concerns have prompted administrators the past two years to turn down requests to make the move.

Randy Marso, Brandon Valley athletic director, has met with those interested in securing a sanctioned soccer program on almost an annual basis. Because adding soccer could have meant cutting teachers or other programs in the past, he recommended the school board hold off. Next time, he’ll recommend they approve it.

“We’re getting close to being in a position where we can add it without taking anything away,” Marso said. “With the club state tournament next fall being the last one, I see a vast majority of the school soccer programs being sanctioned by 2015.

“Right now, you have more schools in the club tournament than the SDHSAA tournament, but that won’t be the case in 2015. We’ll have better opportunities for competition by sanctioning at that time. My recommendation will be to go with it if we have the funding, and I think we will.”

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At O’Gorman, the school system has run the fall soccer program for the past 12 years, so switching to sanctioned status involved less transition than at other schools. The process was made simpler because O’Gorman can charge students participation fees. Public schools do not. That fee began at $200 and is down to $100, according to Steve Kueter, O’Gorman athletic director.

“We’ve discovered that soccer is a relatively inexpensive sport, especially if you factor in how many kids are involved,” said Kueter, who estimated it costs the school $15,000 per team per season. “The equipment needs are minimal and you don’t need a lot of coaches. In terms of cost per participant, it’s the most inexpensive sport we have.”

With future Metro Conference members O’Gorman, and presumably Brandon Valley, on board for sanctioning the sport, it would mean 40 percent of that conference would be on one side and 60 percent — the three Sioux Falls public schools — would be on the other. From the ESD, Mitchell, Harrisburg and Aberdeen Central/Roncalli already are sanctioned.

“I think by 2015 we can have an ESD schedule for soccer,” said Gene Brownell, Aberdeen Central athletic director. “The other (conference) schools are all interested — it’s just a matter for some to figure out how it’s going to work. But the way I see it, if it works in Aberdeen, Mitchell and Harrisburg, it should work everywhere else.”

Title IX complaint complicates

Complicating matters in Sioux Falls is a Title IX complaint filed in 2010 by the National Women’s Law Center against the public school district (and 11 others around the country) for wide gaps in sports participation for boys and girls based on enrollment percentages.

Talks have been ongoing since then with the Office for Civil Rights, but the investigation continues.

This fall, the district began the process of surveying students grades 7-12 to gauge their interest in particular sports, with the results used to help the district guide its future decision-making on adding programs.

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The soccer issue, as it applies to sanctioning in the public schools, includes both genders. But the district’s hard-line approach could be interpreted as the stifling of an opportunity for girls. At the time of the Title IX complaint, the district claimed incomplete data were cited. It said all athletic opportunities, including club and intramural sports, should be considered for Title IX compliance — not only sanctioned sports.

Neena Chaudhry, senior counsel and director of equal opportunities in athletics for the National Women’s Law Center, indicated the school district is on the right track by surveying interest among students, but also said the wide disparity that brought the complaint — reported at 50 percent participation for boys and 35 percent for girls — must be taken seriously.

“Based on the gap that was reported, it surprises me that they aren’t adding it,” Chaudhry said. “It surprises me that they’d hesitate given how far they had to go to come in compliance with the law.”

There also could be an issue with denying soccer athletes the same type of state championship experience that others in the same sport enjoy. Using budget limitations as an excuse isn’t acceptable, Chaudhry added.

“Title IX has been in place for 41 years,” she said. “You don’t get to decide whether you want to follow the law or not based on budgetary concerns.”

Rich Jensen, board president of the Sioux Falls Soccer Association, always has tried to aim much of his organization’s time and resources toward recreational youth soccer. Of the 16,000 playing youth soccer under direction of the organization, fewer than 10 percent are playing it at the high school level.

So when the activities association decided in 2010 to sanction the sport, it was only a matter of time until the soccer association got out of the way.

“Our desire has always been to focus on the younger players,” Jensen said. “Ending our association with a state tournament might motivate some schools, but it was never our intention to try to force the issue. That’s why we gave notice now and gave everyone 24 months. Then we’ll call it good. We’ve been at it with high school kids since 1997, and we’re very proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

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Jensen will continue to offer counsel to club programs and school districts in ways to facilitate the transition from one way of doing things to another. To that end, the actitivies association has offered a five-year transitional option to districts that would permit club programs to pass along the financial burden of the sport incrementally while immediately gaining eligibility for sanctioned competition.

“It could be a very attractive option in a district with serious budgetary concerns,” Krogstrand said. “You’d be able to add a program, allow your kids to participate in a state championship and not have to bite off that large chunk financially right away.”

Assessing future costs

Meile did not indicate whether or not the Sioux Falls schools would be interested in a five-year option for integrating the cost of soccer into the school district budget. But the administration crunched numbers for what it would pay if it happened all at once.

Fielding varsity and junior varsity teams at Lincoln, Roosevelt and Washington (combined) would cost about $150,000 per season, with $60,000 of that going to coaches’ salaries, $35,000 of it for travel costs and officials and the remainder for game-day workers, equipment and supplies.

There are 110 boys and 99 girls participating in club soccer for the three schools now. Meile anticipates the participation numbers would stay about the same if the sport were sanctioned.

In 2011-12, the school district spent $3.75 million on co-curricular activities, which accounted for less than 3 percent of total general fund spending (more than $131.5 million).

Club soccer folks see those numbers and wonder why the district is not moving forward more enthusiastically. A group from Dakota Alliance, a Sioux Falls-based soccer organization that supervises programs involving more than 7,000 players, according to its website, met with members of the district administration to gauge the future of school-affiliated opportunities.

“After the South Dakota Soccer Association announced its sunset date for the state tournament, we met. Our main concern: What about our kids?” said Frank Gurnick, director of coaching for Dakota Alliance. “We really wanted to sit down and talk about alternatives, but quite honestly, all we got was a company line about finances. So far, it’s been a difficult road to travel.”

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Gurnick said that if the district still is outside sanctioned soccer in 2015, his organization would devise an alternative to permit Sioux Falls soccer players the chance to compete in the fall for their schools, and possibly spearhead the organization of an alternative state tournament. But he hopes it never comes to that.

“My hope is that they see how the schools around them are handling this and say, ‘Well, we should look at this more closely,’ ” Gurnick said. “My hope is that the kids in Sioux Falls get a chance to know the pride that comes with competing for your school.”

Daulton Keiser has played club soccer for three seasons for Roosevelt, with another year spent playing high school soccer in Elkhorn, Neb. He moved there for a year to be able to play an elite club program in Omaha.

Keiser sees little distinction between playing club soccer for a school and playing sanctioned high school soccer. Roosevelt does a good job of recognizing his team’s accomplishments, he said, along with those of the sanctioned sports. Playing a season without a state tournament would seem a little strange, however.

“I feel like as hard as we all work every day, I can’t imagine playing where the final game of the regular season is the last game,” he said. “Getting that state title is something I’ve always wanted. Without it, high school soccer wouldn’t be the same. (Sanctioning the sport) is not something we talk about, but if it comes to the point where kids are not playing in a state tournament, that’s going to stir people up.”

Others say something is missing from the club experience. Because O’Gorman’s program has been run by the school for more than a decade, the situation is different than at some public schools. But even so, things changed when the Knights made it a sport aligned with the activities association.

“Academic all-state, postseason awards, all-conference,” O’Gorman girls coach Ryan Beier said, listing the benefits of sanctioned soccer. “Our kids didn’t really have the opportunity to be a part of things like that before.”

Roosevelt coach Becky Janssen has enjoyed her experience as club coach but sees clear advanatages of turning the team over to the school district. As a Chicago native, she was shocked when she learned South Dakota didn’t have sanctioned soccer until recently.

“We get good crowds at games and we have the support of the school — Roosevelt has been wonderful,” Janssen said. “But ideally, we’d have a situation where the boys could concentrate on their training instead of organizing car washes.”